Tag: SVCF

Unsurprisingly, the Middle East Forum (MEF) has been the recipient of Fake News lies all based on the Multiculturalist accusation of Islamophobia. Evidently the lies have become so huge that the MEF has decided to answer those lies with a Top Ten List.

Below is an email alert introduction to that Top Ten List which I will follow with cross post of that list.

As the Middle East Forum’s reach and influence expands, so too does the flurry of ad hominem, distorted, and plainly false attacks on the organization, mostly from Islamists and the far Left.

Institutions leading this assault include the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), J Street, Jewish Voices for Peace, and most recently the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. George Soros’ Open Society Foundations has a special place in our hearts for funding anti-MEF research.

Our opponents attack us for different reasons. Islamist activists loathe our national security views, advancement of women’s rights, and efforts to protect freedoms of moderate Muslim authors, activists, and publishers. Israel-haters oppose our efforts to puncture Palestinian illusions. Academics want to discredit our efforts to improve Middle East studies in North America. America-haters can pretty much take their pick of reasons.

Regardless of their motives, they all draw on the same tired canards that we so often refuted on an ad hoc basis. To save the curious some legwork, we are publishing a list ofthe top ten falsehoods, refuting them all at once, and maybe once and for all. Please take a look.

The Middle East Forum (MEF) is the object of repeated falsehoods. To clear the record, here follows the top ten and our corrections.

Falsehood 1: The Middle East Forum is anti-Muslim, or “Islamophobic.”

False Statements

Center for American Progress: “The Middle East Forum is at the center of the Islamophobia network.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): Daniel Pipes is “considered by many Muslims to be America’s leading Islamophobe.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center: Daniel Pipes is “at the center of what is a large and evolving network of Islam-bashing activists.”

Fact 1: Far from being biased against Muslims, MEF challenges a radical ideology responsible for unfathomable Muslim suffering, and one which most Muslims reject. Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes has beenemphasizing the distinction between Islamism and the Islamic religion – and between the “completely justified fear of Islamists and unjustified fear of all Muslims” – for decades.

The only people who maintain there is little or no distinction between detesting Islamism and detesting Muslims are Islamists themselves and fellow travelers of the sort quoted above. The “Islamophobia” accusations they level at MEF and others are designed to conflate Islamism and Islam, claiming an attack on one is an attack on the other.

This conflation also attempts to delegitimize non-Islamist Muslims working to free their faith from the grip of extremists, and it is no coincidence that Muslim reformers are often viciously attacked. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a far-left organization known for its often inaccurate claims, lists Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation alongside Mr. Pipes as an “anti-Muslim extremist.”

A lot of money finances these allegations. The Center for American Progress, for example, received a $200,000 grant from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) to “research and track the activities” of the Middle East Forum and other NGOs working to combat the spread of radical Islam in America. The Brookings Institution’s recent focus on so-called “Islamophobia” in America likely has much to do with its decade-long partnership with Qatar, which provided it with a $14.8million 4-year grant in 2013.

The latest organization to level the “Islamophobia” accusation at MEF is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), which lashedout after we revealed publicly that it had provided $330,524 to two extremist organizations, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Islamic Relief. It turns out SVCF is getting paid too. According toits 990 form, the extremist InternationalInstitute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) provided SVCF with $500,000 in “program assistance” in 2015.

Falsehood 2: Daniel Pipes regards Muslim organizations as subversive.

False Statements

Jewish Voice for Peace: “Pipes views almost every possible Muslim activity as subversive and threatening.”

Center for American Progress: “The alarmist rhetoric of Daniel Pipes … brand[s] Muslims, Sharia, and even the instruction of Arabic as affronts to American freedom.

Fact 2: In keeping with Mr. Pipes’ oft-repeated belief that “radical Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution,” MEF’s Islamist Watch project was established with a mission to “expose the Islamist organizations that currently dominate the debate, while identifying and promoting the work of moderate Muslims.”

MEF has a long history of supporting, employing, and collaborating with Muslims working to free their community and faith from the grip of Islamists.

See a list here of Muslim organizations the Forum regards as vital allies in this fight, some of whom it helps fund.

Falsehood 3: Pipes supports interning Muslims, akin to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

False Statements

Jewish Voice for Peace: “The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that ‘Pipes endorsed the internment of Muslims in America,’ referencing WWII Japanese American concentration camps as a model to be used against Muslims today.”

Silicon Valley Community Foundation: “Daniel Pipes, president of Middle East Forum, has written in support of the model of Japanese internment camps in relation to American Muslims.”

Fact 3: This canard is a paradigmatic example of how charges initially levelled by one radical organization metastasize through repetition by others. The SPLC report misquoted at right by Jewish Voice for Peace actually states, “In 2004, Pipes endorsed the internment of ethnic Japanese in American prison camps in World War II and held that up as a model for dealing with Muslims today.”

But even this isn’t true. In 2005 an Islamist organization in Canada had to apologize and make a charitable donation to the Middle East Forum for making this claim.

The original article did not argue for internment camps as a model (a follow-up explaining how CAIR and others distorted Pipes’ position can be read here), but rather concluded with support for author Michelle Malkin’s thesis about threat profiling: “She correctly concludes that, especially in time of war, governments should take into account nationality, ethnicity, and religious affiliation in their homeland security policies.”

CAIR itself implicitly acknowledged the truth when it settled a 2004 libel lawsuit against a group making this allegation called Anti-CAIR, with no apology, retraction, or removal of offending Internet materials.

Jewish Voice for Peace: “Contrary to the Middle East Forum’s smear campaign, CAIR is a nationally-recognized civil rights organization that has received praise from seventeen U.S. Senators and 85 U.S. Representatives from both sides of the political aisle.”

Fact 5: CAIR and Islamic Relief are focused on promoting social insularity and distrust of authorities among U.S. Muslims, not defending their civil rights. In fact, both groups frequently host and promote extremist speakers who advocate against civil rights as most Americans understand them.

Siraj Wahhaj, for example, preaches that homosexuality is a “disease” of society, that the punishment for adultery is death, and that Muslims shouldn’t have non-Muslim friends. Omar Suleiman has rationalized honor killings, telling women thinking of promiscuity that they could be killed by their fathers for “offending Allah.”JamalBadawihas said that men have a right to beat their wives. Abdul Nasir Jangda has argued that they have the right to rape their wives.

Falsehood 6: CAIR and Islamic Relief have clean bills of health on links to terrorism from the federal government and from charity watchdogs.

False Statements

Silicon Valley Community Foundation: “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Islamic Relief … are nonprofit organizations in good standing with federal agencies, and do not appear on any U.S. government list as having been tied to terrorism.”

Silicon Valley Community Foundation: “GuideStar reports … whether a nonprofit organization is identified as a ‘Specially Designated National’ on the Office of Foreign Asset Control’s list. In simpler terms, this is the list of U.S. organizations designated as having links to terrorist organizations. Neither CAIR nor Islamic Relief is on this list.”

Fact 7: MEF is a research institution that promotes American interests. Islamist Watch presents factual research on the influence and activity of non-violent U.S.-based Islamist groups and their leaders. Some oppose Israel, to be sure, but most are more focused on targeting women, homosexuals, and others.

Campus Watch researches, analyzes, and critiques the academic study of the Middle East. It arguesagainst“analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students,” but it accepts divergent perspectives. Campus Watch recently published a favorable review of a lecture at the City University of New York (CUNY) by Sari Nusseibeh, a former senior PLO representative under Yasser Arafat whose views hardly qualify as pro-Israeli. A cursory examination of the project’s researcharticles demonstrates that the characterization of Campus Watch as Israel-centered is false. As for the “dossiers,” CW took down those initialeight profiles 15 years ago in favor of an institution-focused survey method.

Falsehood 8: Daniel Pipes and the Middle East Forum have funded the political campaigns of Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders.

False Statements

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes are reported to have put some $150,000 of foundation money into his campaign.”

Fact 8: Not a penny from Daniel Pipes or the Middle East Forum has gone to Wilders personally, his political party, or his campaign.

MEF did provide a grant to pay legal bills in Mr. Wilders’ trial over his film on radical Islam.

As the New York Timesnotes: “the funds that were sent to Geert Wilders were to help him in his legal cases and were not political donations.”

Falsehood 9: Campus Watch seeks to stifle academic freedom.

False Statements

CAIR: Campus Watch [is] part of a larger anti-intellectual campaign aimed at regulating discourse on the Middle East.

Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The Nation: Campus Watch is “neo-McCarthyite” and part of the “New McCarthyism” that seeks to silence anyone with whom it disagrees.

Fact 9: Campus Watch critiques contemporary Middle East studies, which years ago jettisoned rigorous scholarship and teaching for politicized, biased, and inferior work. There is nothing wrong with scrutinizing and criticizing academic research.

No cliché is more hackneyed, no charge intellectually lazier than that CW engages in “McCarthyism” (see right). Unlike the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Campus Watch—a private organization—neither possesses nor seeks the ability to silence or persecute anyone.

Only in the fevered imaginations of some professors do rigorous critiques by outsiders equate with an anti-Communist witch-hunt.

Falsehood 10: Daniel Pipes has lost the support of his former academic colleagues

False Statements

Al Jazeera [interviewing a spokesman from the Center for American Progress]: Pipes has a “scholarly background, but … he has lost the support of many of the people he used to work with, and associate with, when he was a well-respected scholar.”

Fact 10: Mr. Pipes never stopped being a “well-respected scholar” When President George W. Bush nominated him to the board of directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace in 2003, 30 academics signed a letter in support of the appointment. For a more recent example, Professor Edward Alexander of the University of Washington lavished praise in 2016 on Pipes’ Nothing Abides.

That said, it is true that a radicalized academia condemns Pipes and the Forum for their mainstream outlook – and especially for their role in exposing the failure of Middle East studies.

With roots going back to 1990, the Middle East Forum has been an independent tax-exempt 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia since 1994.

Mission

The Middle East Forum promotes American interests in the Middle East and protects Western values from Middle Eastern threats.

The Forum sees the region — with its profusion of dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential conflicts, border disagreements, corruption, political violence, and weapons of mass destruction — as a major source of problems for the United States. Accordingly, we urge bold measures to protect Americans and their allies.

In the Middle East, we focus on ways to defeat radical Islam; work for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; develop strategies to contain Iran; and deal with the great advances of anarchy.

At home, the Forum emphasizes the danger of lawful Islamism; protects the freedoms of anti-Islamist authors, activists, and publishers; and works to improve Middle East studies.

Methods

The Middle East Forum realizes its goals through three main mechanisms:

Intellectual: The Forum provides context, insights, and policy recommendations through the Middle East Quarterly, staff writings, public lectures, radio and television appearances, and conference calls (see below for details).

Middle East Quarterly, published since 1994 and edited by Efraim Karsh, it is the only scholarly journal on the Middle East consistent with mainstream American views. Delivering timely analyses, cutting-edge information, and sound policy initiatives, it serves as a valuable resource for policymakers and opinion-shapers.

Public Outreach. Television and radio rely on Forum specialists, who appear on virtually all the major American over-the-air and cable news programs, plus stations around the globe. MEF staff also brief ranking officials of the U.S. government, testify before Congress, and conduct studies for executive branch agencies.

Have you heard of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation? If you live in California, you probably have heard of SVCF. Adding California and SVCF, it is not difficult to pigeon-hole a wide Leftist influence. Here are some excerpts from the SCVF About Us page:

Since SVCF formed in 2007, we’ve become the largest community foundation in the world, with more than $8 billion in assets under management.

We partner with families, individuals and corporations to manage and facilitate their philanthropy. We connect donors’ interests to the most pressing needs, whether in Silicon Valley or around the globe. As a comprehensive center for philanthropy, SVCF shapes critical public policy issues, partners with nonprofit groups and institutions advancing the best ideas and directs resources swiftly and strategically toward unforeseen needs.

We play an exciting role in addressing the social, economic, and environmental challenges of our communities. SVCF provides leadership, expertise and capital to help address social issues in our region. We also serve as a resource for nonprofit, civic, government and philanthropic organizations. There are four primary ways in which we contribute:

Commission research: We commission research to identify emerging issues, monitor trends and provide analysis. To read about research we have recently commissioned, visit the publications page.

Conduct public discussions: We bring people together to engage in discussion and problem solving. These events often stimulate new insights while encouraging diverse perspectives. Check our calendar for information on upcoming events and discussions.

Advocate: We take principled positions on critical issues and advocate policy outcomes. To learn more about policy, visit the publications page.

Create initiatives: We often launch initiatives and special projects, partnering with other foundations, corporations, nonprofits, donors and government agencies to work on specific topics or issues. Visit our Initiatives page for more information.

“Transform” means change America’s traditional Christian moral stance, change American attitudes toward alternative lifestyles, change the Rule of Law from an Originalist Constitution to a Living Constitution, change American self-reliance to Big Government reliance, change the American Market Economy into a State Managed Economy AND probably more American changes I can’t think of off the top of my head.

I have learned via Change.org that SVCF has hopped on board of the Leftist agenda to promote counter-Christian religions to dilute and eventually eradicate Christianity’s traditional influence on America. In this case that religion is Islam.

As a part of the SVCF community enhancement, the foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to American radical Islamic organizations that have been caught at least by association to have been supportive of Islamic terrorism abroad.

This is fundamentally WRONG to be an American and yet be supportive of religious entities that seek the destruction of the American way of life.

Unlike this petition that distinguishes between Islam & Islamism and according to my readings of the Quran, Hadith and Sunna; Islam is a theopolitical supremacist religion that stands against everything America stands. That is the reason I signed the petition.

In 2008-15, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) provided eight donations totaling $330,524 to two extremist organizations. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) received five donations totaling $132,933. Islamic Relief received three donations totaling $197,591.

We differentiate between Islam and Islamism. American Muslims are an important part of our country; but Islamists pursue an extreme political ideology with no real mandate from ordinary Muslims.

Islamists such as those running CAIR and Islamic Relief encourage hatred against women, Jews, Christians, the LGBTQ community, and Muslims belonging to minority sects. Islamists radicalize Muslims in the United States and fund jihadi violence abroad.

The Middle East Forum and its allies oppose all funding of Islamist organizations because this money both legitimizes Islamists as the voice of America’s Muslims and betrays those moderate Muslims working to free their faith from the grip of hatred and extremism.

SVCF is the largest community foundation in the United States. With over 8 billion dollars in assets under management, it is the go-to charitable organization for some of America’s wealthiest philanthropists. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, made a $500 million dollar donation to the foundation in 2013. America’s largest community foundation and its philanthropic partners should not support organizations that promulgate extremism both here and abroad.

We the undersigned call upon the SVCF to immediately stop all funding of extremist groups, including CAIR and Islamic Relief.

Islamic Relief is the largest Islamic charity in America and the Western world, reportingan income of about $110 million in 2014. But it is a designated terrorist entity in Israeland the UAE. Banks such as UBS and HSBC have closedIslamic Relief bank accounts over concerns about terrorism financing.

Appendix 2: Examples of CAIR and Islamic Relief Hate Speakers

Siraj Wahhaj is a former member of CAIR’s advisory board and one of CAIR’s most regular speakers.

LGTBQ:“I don’t believe any of you are homosexual. This is a disease of this society. … you know what the punishment is, if a man is found with another man? The Prophet Mohammad said the one who does it and the one to whom it is done to, kill them both.”

Infidels: “Woe to the Muslims who pick kafirs [a derogatory Arabic word meaning non-Muslims] for friends. … Take not into your intimacy those outside of your race. They will not fail to corrupt you. Don’t you know our children are surrounded by kafirs. I’m telling you, making the hearts of our children corrupt, dirty, foul.”

Hussain Kamani is a Deobandi preacher who has spoken at multiple Islamic Relief events.

Sex slavery and adultery: Kamani explains that Muslim men may fulfill any sexual desires “with a female slave that belongs to him.” Those who commit adultery or have sex outside of marriage, he asserts, must be “stoned to death.” When Muslim husbands are learning to “train their wives,” beating them is allowed as a “last measure.”

Abdul Nasir Jangda, also from the Deobandi sect, has been promoted and given platforms by both Islamic Reliefand CAIR.

Non-consensual sex: Detailed notes published by Jangda’s students indicate that he defends the use of female sex slaves and justifies marital rape: “The thing to understand is that the husband has his set of divinely given rights one of which is the right to have his physical desires satisfied.”

Honor killings: “Sisters … you know what happens with a really jealous Dad? He kills you and he kills the guy. You are offending Allah … whenever you make yourself promiscuous or you open yourself up to a relationship.”

Homosexuality:“When Allah describes homosexuality as a repugnant shameless sin and details his punishment of a people that practiced sodomy, how can anyone who believes in Allah not find it immoral? … If as Muslims we don’t take a clear stance on this, we will be forced to conform and watch this disease destroy our children.”

Muzammil Siddiqi is chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America and the religious director at the Islamic Society of Orange County. He works closely with CAIR and often speaksat its events.

Homosexuality: He publicly supports the death penalty for homosexuals.

Hassan Shibly is a CAIR staffer, the head of its Florida office.

Homosexuality: He expresses hatred for the LGBT community, as in this tweet where he says homosexuality is a quick way “to earn God’s wrath.”

Jamal Badawi is a recent board member of CAIR’s Canada branch and a popular speaker at CAIR events in the United States.

With roots going back to 1990, the Middle East Forum has been an independent tax-exempt 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia since 1994.

Mission

The Middle East Forum promotes American interests in the Middle East and protects Western values from Middle Eastern threats.

The Forum sees the region — with its profusion of dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential conflicts, border disagreements, corruption, political violence, and weapons of mass destruction — as a major source of problems for the United States. Accordingly, we urge bold measures to protect Americans and their allies.

In the Middle East, we focus on ways to defeat radical Islam; work for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; develop strategies to contain Iran; and deal with the great advances of anarchy.

At home, the Forum emphasizes the danger of lawful Islamism; protects the freedoms of anti-Islamist authors, activists, and publishers; and works to improve Middle East studies.